Amhran nam Bandia: Operation Become The Media - Protect the Sacred San Francisco Peaks

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Operation Become The Media - Protect the Sacred San Francisco Peaks

Call to action and request for support: Base camps are forming at the Sacred Peaks. Grab your affinity group and head over, or support in whatever way you can. The landbase and watershed is threatened by developers clearcutting for ski resorts, and their plans to dump sewer water into the snow-making machines. Direct action is in motion, right now.

People are mobilizing, and those putting their bodies on the line are imploring us to spread the word and strengthen their impact in whatever ways we can. Strength and prayers to those holding the line today, for as long as it takes. Moran Taing agus Slàinte Mhath!

Follow the actions live on Twitter at the #nopoopsnow hashtag.

Photo of sacred peaks courtesy Nuvatukya Ovi
Press release via TrueSnow.org and Censored News:

Operation: Become the Media

Hello all you hard working supporters of sacred sites. We are quickly moving towards the critical mass of people prepared to move this to a full fledged sit-in. Eleven basecamps set and at least 15 more who have announced they have started travel, and growing. The CookShack affinity group has made a public call for joiners, and will be taking a public role. Here are the problems we are running into, especially here in Flagstaff. [To those not on-site] The destruction is not real or everyone is in some stage of denial. Petitions will not save us. The superhuman lawyer Howard Shanker has been neutralized. The coalition court case is now the perfect smokescreen for the Destruction. People sit thinking that a legal decision some time in September will stop destruction that is ALREADY HAPPENING. So join Operation: Become the Media today:

1. Go to the peaks immediately and start filming the destruction. Post it on YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

2. Everyone post the links for other to spread the word. Tweet them with #nopoopsnow on #sacredsites.

3. Spread the word on Facebook by tagging your friends. This link will take you to Facebook Event with a note to help you get started tagging right away: Join the Peaks Tagging Crew.

4. Become the media. Don't wait for Randy Wilson to mangle the story. Write the story. Give it to your friends. Who are they going to believe? You and your eyewitness reports or a half-spun version in a newspaper funded partly with Snowbowl money?

5. Help people snap out of it. I know, Tsunamis, Earthquakes, 20% house foreclosure rate, nearly 25% of the country out of work, massive fires from a century of forest abuse, war in the east, war in the west, etc. Yep It's all connected. But it feels really good right now to know that there is one place we can take a stand. We can make a difference. And it is right here, It's the Peaks. It's a start!

6. Spread the word! Petitions were used as toilet paper. Letters were thrown away. The lawsuits have become a smokescreen for the greedy to do their destruction. The destruction is real and it is time to interrupt our normally scheduled lives and converge on the peaks!

Grab your camera, grab a friend, go right up on your public lands and film it and let the world know! It's up to you now. Do not go alone, and if Arizona Snowbowl harasses you, call the police on them. You have the right to be there, it is your land! And film that too :)

photo courtesy brenda norrell

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Gaelic Polytheism, Cultural Preservation, Indigenous Solidarity

Occasional musings from one of the original troublemakers behind the contemporary Gaelic Polytheist (GP) (Gaelic: Ioma-Dhiadhachd Ghàidhealach; Irish: Ildiachas Gaelach) and Celtic Reconstructionist traditions. Allegedly the person to blame for that unwieldy, awkward, misinterpreted and misrepresented, umbrella tradition name (CR), and most definitely to blame for the Nigheanan nan Cailleach agus Ora nam Bandia branches of the community.

Clann Eóghainn na h-Oitrich, NicAoidh, agus Eóganachta. Tha mi a fuireach ann Wabanahkik. Co-còrdadh: Gä•sweñta’.

While my family culture growing up was predominantly diasporan Gael (Irish/Scottish-American), and my low BQ gives me white skin privilege / passing privilege, I also have Indigenous heritage from both Turtle Island (Yę Iswąre tatene utkéware hęwu) and Sápmi, as well as cherished African-American ancestors who survived the Middle Passage and the Underground Railroad. I am one of the people who has researched Cherokee blood myths to find the hidden truth that so many of us share - Black ancestors who made the excruciating choice to assimilate and pass in order to stay alive after escaping slavery.

As an unenrolled relative, reconnecting with the community we're pretty certain my ancestors are from, I'm a long-term member of several Indigenous-led collectives, active in Indian Country in largely a backup/support role since the 1980s, and in more recent years in interfaith and political work as both a collective member, extended family member, and as a representative of both our GP groups and the descendant crew. I don't presume to steer the canoe, even when I'm another grunt helping paddle one that my cousins, aunties, and adopted siblings have built and are helming. But except for my fellow Gaels and other diverse relatives, I jumped out of the ship over a decade ago. I'd much rather dive deep with the prop-fouling otters, be a shieldmaiden in the metaphorical jet ski clan, and continue my work with the side of the family I live with now, than get back into that rotting colonists' ship... unless it's to sabotage and change the course. Which I've been known to do sometimes.

It's one of multiple ways that my life is lived in liminal zones.

And if it's not abundantly clear, I fully support and unreservedly defend Indigenous Sovereignty: the right of Tribal Nations to determine their citizenship criteria, as well as their right to set the definition of who is and is not Indigenous. Descendants - those of us with documented ancestry but whose ancestors chose to separate from the tribe and live as non-Natives - need to abide by the criteria for Indigeneity set by the Nations we descend from. Even if it's complicated and not what you want to hear. And this applies exponentially if the documentation is iffy. To violate that boundary by trying to claim full Native status - by self-Indigenization - is dishonorable to the ancestors, as well as a violation of hospitality. Real descendants seeking to reconnect need to do so with profound respect, and on the terms set by the living relatives and Elders in that specific culture and community. And if the answer is "No," or "Not that way," to accept that.

I serve on the governing councils of CAORANN and Gaol Naofa; however, all opinions expressed on this blog, and posted elsewhere under my own name on social media, are my own.